Today VEX is launching manuals.vex.com, a new web-based home for VEX Game Manuals. Until now, Game Manuals have been published as PDFs. Starting today, they are also published as web documents built for accessibility, improved user experience, and better version tracking.
For the VEX AIR Drone Competition, the Game Manual on manuals.vex.com is the official Game Manual, starting today.
For the VEX IQ Robotics Competition, the VEX V5 Robotics Competition, VEX U Robotics Competition, and the VEX AI Robotics Competition, we will support both releases for the duration of this season before transitioning completely to manuals.vex.com for 2027-2028. PDFs like you’re used to will be released as the official manuals, and this site will remain up to date with all of the information contained in that document.
Why we built it
PDFs are great for printing, but they don’t work well for many people.
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Screen readers often struggle with them. Students who use screen readers can hear headings, tables, and images read in the wrong order, or skipped entirely.
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They don’t fit your screen. On a phone or tablet, you usually have to pinch, zoom, and scroll sideways to read a single line.
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They’re hard to adjust. Changing text size, spacing, or colors to make reading easier isn’t simple in a PDF.
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They go out of date. When the manual is updated, older copies keep getting shared, so it’s easy to end up reading rules that have changed.
An online manual fixes many of these problems. The page adjusts to fit your screen, whether you’re on a laptop in the build space or a phone at the competition. You can zoom in, use dark mode, or turn on your browser’s translation tools. Screen readers can move through the content in the right order. You can search for a rule, link straight to it, and know you’re looking at the latest version.
This change is part of VEX’s commitment to making our websites, curriculum, and resources accessible to every student and educator. We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, an international standard for accessible web content, and we’ll keep improving our online manuals based on what we learn from you. You can read more about this work in the VEX Accessibility Policy, which also publishes Accessibility Conformance Reports showing how each VEX website and platform measures up against WCAG 2.1 AA.
What it does
- Improved accessibility. The site follows WCAG 2.1, so more people can access, read, and understand the Game Manual on any device.
- Version comparison. Every manual keeps its version history on the site. Choose any two versions and the site highlights the exact text that changed between them, so when a manual update is released you can see every change, not only the summary.
- Download and print. Still like having a paper copy? You can print the online manual or save it as a PDF right from the webpage: the whole manual, a single section, or a single page. Just keep in mind that a printed copy won’t update itself, so check for the latest version before your next event.
- Pageless format. The manual is laid out without page breaks, so a rule, table, or diagram is never split across two pages.
- Built-in feedback. A feedback button is built into the site. Report a typo, a broken link, or a bug from the page you are on, or suggest an idea the same way.
- Q&A integration. We are integrating the official Q&A system with manuals.vex.com. Relevant Q&As will be linked and highlighted on the specific rules they apply to, and each one will link straight to that question on the events.vex.com Q&A page.
Why both releases this season
Running both releases for a season gives teams and event volunteers time to use the site at real events and use the feedback button to tell us what works and what does not, before manuals.vex.com becomes the official home for those four programs in 2027-2028.
We will keep adding features and fixing what you report throughout the season, so the site will only get better from here.
Feedback
The fastest way to reach us is the feedback button built into manuals.vex.com. Found something wrong, confusing, or missing, or run into a bug? Have an idea that would make the manual better? Send it from the page you are on. The more specific you are about the rule or section, the faster we can act on it. This thread is open for discussion too. For any rules related questions, please continue to use the official VEX Robotics Q&A at events.vex.com.
We are excited about this release and hope you are too. Take a look at manuals.vex.com, and let us know what you think!
